The Last Outing is a project to capture the experiences and concerns of older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in order to inform policy and practice for those receiving health and social care services towards and at the end of life.

The project team from The University of Nottingham is now ready to present its findings at a workshop on Tuesday 17 June. They will then invite attendees to actively engage in discussions in order to shape recommendations for future practice relating to older LGBT people and end of life care. The study has involved interviewing LGBT people aged 60 or over and people under 60 who have LGBT partners aged 60 or over.

The workshop is on Tuesday 17 June from 10am-3.30pm in Highfield House on University Park. It is free to attend but places are limited — more information is available online.

Click here for full story

LGBT discrimination

There is a clear need to change policies regarding end of life care for LGBT people as the English End of Life Care Strategy found LGBT people to be the most likely to face discrimination when it comes to end of life care.

Dr Anne Patterson, Research Fellow at the University, hopes that the workshop will help to further develop the project’s recommendations.

She said: “The research team are hoping to gain perspectives and feedback on the findings, working collaboratively with people who have been participants in the research and others interested in the project and its outcomes.

“Rather than simply presenting a set of findings we want to engage with various audiences, including LGBT people, practitioners and policy makers, to ensure that recommendations are refined in such a way that they are useful and meaningful to both those accessing services and those providing them.”

LGBT people over 60

There has been very little previous research in this area and project lead Dr Kathryn Almack believes this is due to a lack of awareness that end of life care for LGBT people is even an issue. This belief has been reinforced through interviewing LGBT people aged 60 and over.

Dr Almack said: “Very often we’ve found, talking to care providers, they would say ‘oh we don’t have any LGBT clients.’ But statistics say 5-7 per cent of the population is LGBT. They must be using care services — that suggests to us they’re not disclosing sexual orientation or their needs are not being met.”

Our academics can now be interviewed for broadcast via our new Globelynx fixed camera facility at the University. For further information please contact a member of the Communications team on +44 (0)115 951 5798, email mediahub@nottingham.ac.uk or see the Globelynx website for how to register for this service.

Notes to editors: The University of Nottinghamhas 43,000 students and is ‘the nearest Britain has to a truly global university, with campuses in China and Malaysia modelled on a headquarters that is among the most attractive in Britain’ (Times Good University Guide 2014). It is also the most popular university in the UK among graduate employers, one of the world’s greenest universities, and winner of the Times Higher Education Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sustainable Development’. It is ranked in the World’s Top 75 universities by the QS World University Rankings.

Story credits

More information is available from Dr Anne Patterson, Research Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at The University of Nottingham, at +44 (0)115 823 0488, anne.patterson@nottingham.ac.uk